WASHED AND READY TO EAT

There's something about the Euro elections that leads to some truly weird and wonderful stuff coming through the door of Woodford Towers. We all hear plenty about the anti-Europeanism of Nigel Farage and his mates in UKIP, but there's rather less coverage afforded to Mike Nattras MEP and his peculiarly-named 'An Independence From Europe' party. A postcard-sized A6 flier announces that this little-known outfit tops the ballot paper. We should apparently look for its logo, which - confusingly - is the EU symbol and the word OUT, with a big red cross through it. At a glance, therefore, it looks as if Mike is actually against his own plea to exit the 26-strong club of nations. A rambling, closely-typed statement touches on the following issues: extradition; road pricing; the EU Army (sic); the HS2 rail link; free movement of workers; the closure of the Welsh Assembly; incinerators; private prisons; flood defences and megatrucks (which are, I discover, 60-tonne, 25-me...

Transport for London have invented another atrocious piece of jargon to accompany 'touch in' and 'touch out'. The largely incomprehensible world of Oyster is now apparently rife with 'card clash'.  Passengers are warned via posters and Tannoy announcements to avoid this bizarre affliction, which occurs when your contactless credit card is inadvertently charged as you tap your Oyster. You end up paying double bubble, so 'hard cash' is probably a more appropriate description than card clash. The way it's presented is a little like an unfortunate venereal disease. Something that happens when you're careless. As opposed to a stupid design flaw in a system that's screwing you.